


you're not everything that i thought you were

by silverkatana



Series: chances. [1]
Category: H.O.T. (Band), SECHSKIES (Band)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Positive Endings, arguably platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 12:18:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17100452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverkatana/pseuds/silverkatana
Summary: from kim jaeduck, to an seungho.





	you're not everything that i thought you were

You seemed perfect from first glance. Of course, upon first sight it wasn’t as though I could even glimpse much of you, considering how you were flanked by approximately three bodyguards, all much taller and bulkier than the two of us, and all I could really catch was the colour of your hair or what shoes you were wearing that day. But everything that everyone told us was enough for us - for  _ everyone _ , really - to think that you were perfect - you and your four other groupmates. 

 

Your hair was always perfectly styled, not a strand out of place, looking drop-dead gorgeous no matter what shade it was dyed in, your outfits always coordinated so well you looked more like you were at a fashion show than walking backstage at a dry rehearsal, each and every smile flashed towards the camera so practised they seemed impossibly real.

 

Somewhere along the way, we became rivals. You were so perfect, all of you, like some divine beings from the skies so hard to reach, and perhaps we were the wild imperfection which was the only thing that could possibly combat your perfection. Turning up to rehearsals five minutes after being dragged out of bed, messy hair stuffed under oversized caps and dressed head-to-toe in completely mismatching colours. We wondered how you were so perfect.

 

That was the image of you I always had of you - perfect, from the way you shook my hand for the first time to the way you smiled when the fans chanted your name like a mantra over and over,  _ Tony, Tony, Tony. _

 

From the way English rolled off your tongue like you were never born in Korea, from the way you always had sponsorships from expensive brands and the way you were dressed in luxury like you were richer than royalty, from the way you glanced my way from time to time, from the way you looked as though you never aged a day beyond eighteen.

 

When your group disbanded, I was shocked, really. It was the first time the realisation hit me, harder and more forceful than a spear being rammed into my chest -  _ maybe you weren’t perfect. _

 

But then you kept being so perfect, seeming so perfect, when you picked yourself up and continued with a solo career with that same perfect beauty and honey-sweet vocals and at that point I honestly wondered,  _ is there anything that you cannot do? _

 

I wondered why I was not as perfect as you were. 

 

Years passed, and you faded from my memory, and while I was serving in the military I heard news that you were going to be my direct junior. It was surprising, really, knowing that I would have authority over the same person who has always had a perfect image in my mind - but what was more surprising was the way they whispered about you behind your back, all nasty words and nothing nice, and when you arrived at the camp for the first time I ran my eyes over your face over and over again as much as I could without you noticing.

 

_ How could you possibly be as imperfect as all of them said? _

 

Bit by bit, in the military camp that we shared, I began to learn about you, a little bit at a time. The lies that have built up year after year in my mind started to blur between the realities that you showed me, and as I looked at your sleeping face one night I wondered who you were.

 

Between the perfect image that you conveyed back then, to the person who they whispered bad things about, to the person who lay sound asleep exhausted from a day’s work - why could I not pinpoint the real you? What were the lies, the falsified images crafted and spun into deceiving perfections, the way they treated your name as if it were worse than garbage, the way you spoke to me? What were the realities - how perfect were you, really? 

 

I ached to know. I wanted to know if everything I believed about you were just a persona that intertwined itself so flawlessly into your words and your smiles and your  _ everything  _ that it became impossible for me to distinguish truths from falsehoods.

 

And now - now, by some unprecedented twist of fate, you sit in front of me in your house - in  _ our  _ house - and you are reaching out for what feels like your hundredth bottle of soju in the evening. I reach out and pull it away from you before you drink too much and pass out, and you halt in your tracks and stare at me with a confused expression flitting across your face like a broken child watching their parents walk away from them.

 

My heart breaks in my chest for you.

 

“Jaeduck,” you rasp, and your voice sounds so different from the saccharine-sweet one that I was used to, and my heart only splinters a little more at the sound. “Pass me the bottle, won’t you?”

 

“I think you’ve had enough to drink for the evening, Seungho-hyung,” I answer as gently as I can, seeing your face fall as you examine my face with an expression of hopeless consternation. “You shouldn’t drown your sadness away like this.”

 

I can see the tears that glimmer in the corners of your eyes, the regret and pain and distress that is clinging to every corner of your thinning frame, the thoughts running through your mind too much for you to handle and wreaking chaos upon your ailing mentality.

 

_ You’re not everything that I thought you were. _

 

Your imperfections come to life before my eyes - the smile that slips off your face because you are too tired and too broken and too fucked over by life to even  _ try _ to smile anymore, the dark circles below your eyes that only get heavier every passing day, the way your lips are cracked and your eyes are bloodshot from an endless cycle of drinking and crying, the way your voice is hoarse and barely escapes your throat when you try to speak, the way you are falling apart faster than you can hope to pick yourself up.

 

How far you are from perfect.

 

My thoughts are loud in my head, about you, about everything about you, about how the realities finally align and everything about you that is not perfect shines through, about how the lies have finally come crashing down and how you sit here in front of me as nobody but you. A broken soul, a tired shell, an imperfect being. My thoughts are roaring in my mind, and I wonder if they are so loud that you can hear them.

 

Maybe they are, because in the next moment you look at me and breathe out a quiet “I’m sorry”.

 

“Don’t be,” I’m quick to reply -  _ I should have seen through your lies from the start, I should have seen your imperfections from the start, why didn’t I?  _ \- and I cast my gaze across the disorientation that shadows your expression. “I should’ve known.”

 

That comes out harsher than I meant it to be, and it’s clear from the way you flinch back and hang your head as though too ashamed to meet my gaze. “I fucked up, didn’t I?” you laugh crudely after a moment of silence, and it becomes too clear to me how much you are breaking apart on the inside, how clear you are of your own imperfections and how much you are dying inwardly because you cannot turn a blind eye to any of them.

 

“Seungho-hyung,” I whisper, as tenderly as I can possibly muster, and my voice wavers. I don’t know if it’s because my heart has shattered into fragments in my chest and I am close to crying, or if it’s because I am terrified of reaching out to confront the imperfections in you that have rendered both of us bewildered and lost. “Seungho-hyung, I didn’t mean it like that.”

 

“No,” you reply, and the bitterness in your tone is so strong that it makes my head spin and I freeze on the spot while moving closer to you, “You really should’ve known. I’m sorry.”

 

_ You’re not everything that I thought you were. _

 

“Seungho-hyung,” my tone is pleading, and you are confused as you finally glance up at me, “Please don’t be sorry.”

 

_ You are so human. _

 

“Why are you still here?” you question me, and I feel something wet against my left cheek. A tear. My own.

 

“Why are you still here?” you ask again, shaking your head as your own tears begin to inch out at last, “Why are you still here, when I am a mess in front of you, when all my lies have been broken apart, when-”

 

The rest of your words fade away in my embrace.

 

You are warm, your tears warmer as they melt against my shoulder. I hope I am warm too as I hold you close, so that you can take comfort in my presence. 

 

“You don’t have to pretend to be perfect anymore,” my voice is scratchy and barely-audible, but I know that you can hear from the way you close your eyes and finally lean into my arms like you are letting go of all the burdens that you have been trying to carry on your narrow shoulders all alone at last, and you cry into my shoulder like you are beginning to accept the flaws that exist within you. “Let’s start over again, second chances. No more pretending, no more perfection. Seungho-hyung, can you promise to just be you?”

 

Despite yourself, you chuckle a little, and I am glad to hear the sound. “I’m too much of a mess…”

 

“And I will love you for the mess that you are, I will love all the imperfect parts of you that even you cannot find in yourself to love,” I tell you with so much conviction and strength in my voice that I did not know I could muster.

 

You are imperfect.

 

You are human.

 

But I think that I can love the imperfect An Seungho more than I can love the too-perfect Tony An.

 

_ So please, be everything that I think you are. _

 

“Promise me?” I ask you.

 

You smile at me, not a practised one this time, and my heart sings in my chest.

 

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> forgiving & starting over is a difficult thing sometimes but sometimes it means a lot; anyway hope you enjoyed this 20-minute work of mine that sprang up at 10am in the morning & compelled me to write it ♡


End file.
